Shadows within the eyes
by Harkly
Summary: David and the Animorphs meet. Each with their own pain to bear. Each with their own nightmares. Niether quite sure what to do.


David climbs onto land, his small rat body scraping the sides of the wooden boat that he managed to be a stowaway on. It isn't easy, but he finally makes it over and falls onto the hard dock, hoping he hadn't permanently damaged any of his rodent muscles when he jumped from his island to the boat.

__

His island. It is funny to him, how quickly that sad lonely bit of land became a sad lonely home. But he's left it, he is back where he started. 

No, not really. Not at all.

He isn't out for revenge, though he might have been, had he had the energy to process those thoughts. After all, a rat that can tell the Yeerks about the Andalite Bandits would do the same job as any human.

However, he is no longer truly either, rat nor human. He is bitter, and who could blame him? He is an empty soul in the wrong outer shell. He isn't sure why he is there, what he wants to accomplish. He only knows that he has to find them. The ones that did this to him. The ones who wronged him. The ones he wronged.

And if it's not to help them, then it's not to hate them, either.

***

Rachel sees his eyes in her sleep, and she knows she'll never be at peace. Oddly she is calmed by this thought. Now that she knows it, she need no longer try for it. It will never come. She will continue to fight the battle with the darkness inside of her, a battle she will never win because the darkness is the only thing that protects her, the thin barrier that allows her to wake up and live after a night of killing. The darkness will save her as it kills her.

If there hadn't been a David, the darkness wouldn't be there. Or maybe it would have been there, but she would have been unaware of it. It was he who had caused her 2nd war, the one waged under her flesh. That's why he is so often in her dreams, especially as a rat, with his eyes screaming and dark.

"I hate him" She murmurs to the darkness of her room. "I hate what he has made me."

But that sounds wrong. It isn't hate she feels. It is a whole mess of feelings: anger, betrayal, pity, self-loathing, and millions of other things she has no words for. Hatred, she decides is too broad a topic, and, somehow, what she feels can't be defined in one simple word. 

What she needs is closure, she needs to see him again. To look into those eyes.

And if it's not because she hates him, it's not because she wants to befriend him either.

***

David finds that Cassie's barn is harder to locate then he thought. After all, he has quite a different eye view then before. However, he has little to do and lots of time to spend, so he finds it.

Everything is the same. _How dare it be so familiar_, he thinks, _when everything is so different_?

He backs into a corner, suddenly frightened, confused.

So he crouches in the shadow and waits.

***

The Animorphs wander into the barn at different times. Each carry their own thoughts and troubles, each with their own worry as to what promise or curse the day might bring. They discuss and review, make plans and debate. Rachel puts her head in her hands, and stares into the shadows, unsure if she sees the substancial shadows of the barn or the darkness; rising again within her mind.

And maybe it's both, because from the shadows, each of the shadows, emerges a pair of eyes that have screamed in her sleep.

***

David crawls out from the corner and meets the faces of those who he had once hated. He thinks he should feels something, some emotion welling up inside of him.

But he has never felt emptier.

Maybe that isn't a bad thing.

After all, when you are truly empty, doesn't that give you a new chance to be filled?

***

Rachel feels her legs fall and her knees lock her into kneeling position. She doesn't care, in fact she welcomes it, now David can look into her eyes. Now she can see his.

They aren't screaming anymore.

Around her the others look into his eyes too. Do they see his shadows? Does he see theirs?

Who sees hers?

***

The girl reaches her hand out, palm first. The others had seen her in battle many times, she never flinches and she doesn't now.

However, her eyes hold a fear and terror greater then that of any battle.

After a moment of holding her hand out, the rat nudges his nose against one finger.

Then he looked back up into six pairs of eyes.

As they looked into his.

And if it wasn't perfect, well, it was a beginning.

And if it wasn't friendship, well, it was a start.

And if it wasn't hatred, well, maybe it was forgiveness.

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Hmmm, well, there it is. My first Animorph fic. Aren't you all proud?

::silence::

Okay, fine! I'll just talk to my duck-hat. You're proud of me, right duck-hat?

Er… while my duck -hat decides whether or not it's proud of me, I'll just do my lil' disclaimer

I don't own it. Don't steal it. There we go.

It's a bird it's a plane, it's SUPER E-MAIL! [Illah44@aol.com][1]

   [1]: mailto:Illah44@aol.com



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